


Walking in Traffic

by versigny



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Hate to Love, High School, Mutual Masturbation, Telepathic Bond, Trope Subversion/Inversion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 01:38:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7133270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/versigny/pseuds/versigny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was any parent’s worst nightmare: their child had found their soulmate at the ripe age of three and a half.</p><p>(happy early birthday to @jeongguxk!!!!! <3333)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walking in Traffic

It was any parent’s worst nightmare: their child had found their soulmate at the ripe age of three and a half.

The playground is a sacred, liminal zone for children. Terrible and wonderful things happen on playgrounds. A million treasures have been lost and found in the sand; many bones have been broken from “jump off the swing!!!”; some kids make best friends by the slide, and some are kidnapped and never seen again. But a playground is a playground. Your mother was a good mother, and she was not intending on letting your local playground be somewhere unsafe for you.

“Go climb, baby,” she kissed your cheeks. Being a well-adjusted and attached child, you obeyed with only a little hesitance. There weren’t a ton of other kids, so you could mind your own business if you wanted, but also find somebody to play with if you felt like it, too.

First, you surveyed the area. The swings were full. Under the main slide, you poked around the sand before deciding to climb a ladder, but you felt woozy from the height and frowned before going back down. But even back on the ground you still felt woozy.

Then something pulled on your hair. _Hard_.

“Owww!” you protested, turning sharply. The woozy feeling peaked, then settled into a dull warmth in your belly as you stared at a boy staring back at you. Immediately, you knew his name – Mingyu, it was Mingyu – and he smiled before reaching out and squishing your face. His hands were covered in sand and you spluttered, automatically shoving at him.

“Stoppit!” you whined. “Go away, Mingyu!”

“No,” he hummed back.

This went on for several minutes, until you simply could not take it a moment longer. Hot, angry tears welled up in your eyes, and before he could stop you, you shrieked “MOMMY!” at the top of your lungs and started wailing.

The playground came to a halt. Younger infants began crying at the sound of the scream, and your mother ran over as if death chased her. When she found you red-faced and bitter, cheeks damp and shiny, she turned into a mess of questions and reassurances, trying to pat your head and check you for injuries at the same time.

“What’s wrong? I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong,” she finally begged, looking painfully concerned.

Sniffling and hiccuping, you shook your head angry and pointed in the direction of a house across the street.

“Mingyu,” you warbled. “It’s Mingyu. I hate him. My tummy hurts. He’s hiding.”

It was about twenty minutes before anything started making sense. Your mother, patient as she was, knew nothing of any “Mingyu” and had no knowledge of you having any imaginary friends. But you would not stop crying, so she was forced to eventually hold your hand and cross the street with you to a normal home, where she gave you a wondering look before ringing the doorbell.

Another woman answered, looking pleasant but confused. “Hello?”

“Um,” your mother began, glancing at you, “my… daughter… says there’s a Mingyu here?”

And there was. Both mothers convened for a short while. Neither of them recognized each other, and it had only been your first time at the playground since moving there.

But what was most alarming was the fact that you kept insisting that Mingyu was hiding under the bed.

Unsettled, his mother went to check. He was. He was dragged out, and he refused to make eye contact with you.

“Mingyu,” his mother said slowly, “why is this little girl here and saying you were mean to her?”

“I don’t know,” he denied instantly. “I don’t know her. I don’t know.”

“He’s lying!”

All three heads turned at your vehement voice. Scowling at the boy, you blubbered on, “He’s lying! He’s _lying_!”

And Mingyu, in any other circumstance, may have been able to keep his cool. But he felt a surge of anger, indignance, frustration, and so he blurted back, “Shut up, ____!”

The house goes silent. The tea kettle goes off a moment later, and stone-faced, Mrs. Kim wanders over and pours the water without a word.

“Mommy,” you whine quietly, “my tummy hurts.”

Your mother, wide-eyed, stares at you, and then the boy who is perhaps only a few months older and also trying to subtly cross his arms over his chest, as if it’s bothering him somehow. She asks a question she didn’t think she’d ever have to ask.

“Baby,” she says very gently, voice a little strained, “Mingyu. I need you to be honest with me. When did you learn each other’s names?”

Blinking tearfully at your beautiful, kind mom, you answered truthfully, “When he pulled my hair and I turned around.”

Slightly pale, she looked to Mingyu. He didn’t look very happy at all as he tugged on his shirt and said, “When she got to the playground. And then I got a tummy ache.”

“Me too! Mommy, is it his fault?”

“It’s your fault!”

“No it’s not!”

The conversation is interrupted by the thump of your mother fainting.

–

The upside to this, at least, is that the circumstances are about as ideal as any parent could hope for.

You hate each other.

There have been horror stories of very young soulmate meeting and getting _far_  too clingy _far_  too soon. Not being mentally and emotionally prepared can be detrimental in the long term, and it’s generally accepted that soulmates find each other at the average age of twenty.

You and Kim Mingyu, however, are statistical outliers, and should not be counted.

Your families get along well, at least. And you live close enough that there’s no bouts of soulsickness but with enough blocks between you that you aren’t constantly in each others’ proximity and at each others’ throats.

No parent wants to have the soulmate talk so young, but. So it goes.

You are five and preparing for your first day of kindergarten. You are in a different class than Mingyu, but nevertheless, your mother impresses upon you – _honey, I know you and Mingyu feel very strongly about each other, but it’s important you don’t tell **anyone**. At all. Not even your teacher. Just ignore him if he bothers you, okay?_

She kisses you goodbye at the drop-off.

By noon, she and Mrs. Kim are called in. Your front teeth are missing and Mingyu has a bloody nose.

–

The end of fifth grade is dangerous.

Graduation goes off without a hitch. You go out to eat, open a few presents, and get ice cream later.

Two days later, you are ill.

“Momma,” you croak, curled up in bed. “I’m so sleepy. I feel like garbage. It feels like my stomach’s empty.”

You’re running a temperature. Anxious, your mother calls her best friend and probable eventual sister-in-law, asking if Mingyu is well.

 _Well_ , Mrs. Kim answers, _Mingyu just went to summer camp for three weeks. I have no idea._

 _Oh_ , your mother says. _Well. That’s that._

For three more days you lay in bed with something like the flu. You ask to go to the doctor, but your parents keep declining, saying it will pass, it will pass. On the sixth day, craving orange juice, you crawl out of the sheets at seven in the morning only to overhear them discussing over coffee–

“They hardly speak to each other! That’s what I don’t get, I thought only close soulmates were prone to these sort of things–”

“I don’t know. They’ve always been strange. Frankly I’m not surprised she finally got soulsick. Just let it wear off, she’ll be fine.”

“But then what happens if Mingyu goes even further away? Or for longer? Oh my god, what if she needs to be hospitalized?”

“Honey. Please. It’s seven. She’s fine. Sit down and drink your coffee.”

The words turn over very slowly in your head until disgust roils in your hollow stomach. Stumbling out into the dining room you snap, “Are you telling me I’m sick because of _MINGYU_?”

Your mom buys you a new cell phone to make up for it.

–

Middle school, arguably, is the worst.

Puberty? Check. Hormones? Check. Peer pressure? Check. Petty preteen problems? Check.

Two petty preteens going through puberty and are also soulmates pretending they’re not due to a mixture of fear, embarrassment, and hatred? Check, check, check, check! Bingo! Congratulations!

Middle school creates first crushes and shitty friends. After a school career of being better, prettier, and smarter than Mingyu, the breakouts kick in and his do not and oh, how the tables turn.

“You are,” Mingyu says proudly, “a fucking nerd.”

You slam your locker shut in retaliation. You would not cry. You were not going to cry.

“You’re going to be alone forever, by the way.”

“Oh! Oh that’s RICH coming from you, you prissy little son of a–”

“You started your period yesterday.”

A few girls in listening vicinity gasped. Then, at the horror in your eyes and pink staining your face, erupted into shrieks and laughter, chanting your name and announcing to the world that you were on the rag.

Shoving him as hard as you possibly could, praying nobody saw your eyes water, you raged, “Go walk in traffic!” 

Then, you booked it for the handicap restroom where you could be alone.

Maybe you’d skip gym today.

–

…But if middle school was the worst, high school was a _nightmare._

Middle school had come with the hormones and discovery of all sorts of fun things, but it wasn’t until freshman year that you were able to put any of this information to good use. You had figured out, eventually, that when you were trying to go to sleep but ended up sweaty and heart racing with a strange ache in your core it had nothing at all to do with your menstrual cycle, and everything to do with Mingyu’s alone time in his room with his hand.

There was no way you could avoid each other forever. Mingyu didn’t know that you knew, but you had to keep it hush-hush during class, grimacing at the back of his head during calculus and sitting on the opposite end of the room during English lit. Part of you wanted to announce it to the world like he did in 6th grade – “Hey everyone, Mingyu beat off at 9:30 last night!” – but you would be better than that. You would be better than him.

Freshman year passes too quietly. Probably because his acne kicked in, and yours cleared up.

–

Sophomore year, it all comes to a grinding halt.

It only takes one group project to throw a wrench in everything. You are finally forced to exchange phone numbers, but by the grace of Satan, the third member of your group has been able to work with each of you separately so you and Mingyu don’t have to work together.

And then they get sick.

And you kind of want to throw up, too, but that’s because Mingyu is sitting in your room looking like someone has a metal bat up his ass, and you kind of wish you had a metal bat–

“Oh thank fuck, we’re done.”

Mingyu slams the textbook shut and rises without another word, cracking his neck as he does. You don’t say a single word to him as he packs up and leaves, but you also don’t see him linger in your doorway for half a second too long, staring at the curve of your neck that appeared when you moved your hair out of the way.

Then he’s gone.

Later that night, freshly showered and relieved to be done, you suddenly feel it – the ache, the warmth, and you are furious and you know what? It’s time.

Smiling saccharinely, you grab your phone covered in Pokemon stickers and laden with charms, and press the contact named “FUCKBOY”.

It rings – once, twice, three times…

…and then goes silent.

He had canceled the call. You grin widely, wait one minute, and dial again.

 _Riiiing. Riiiiing. Riiing_ –

“The hell do you want?”

“Hi Mingyu. Can you email me a copy of the draft before class? I want my own just in case, you know how Mrs. Chan gets and I don’t want her panties to be in a wad because of you messing up. Her gross, old lady panties–”

“What’s wrong with you? Jesus, that’s disgusting–”

“You were there that time she bent over and her skirt went up, right?”

“Stop.”

“I’ll stop if you walk in traffic.”

The line goes dead.

You sleep like a baby.

–

If Mingyu figures it out, he doesn’t mention it.

You make it a subtle, cruel habit of texting or calling him or finding some fucking way to interrupt him when he’s about to jerk off. Some methods were complicated – you ordered a pizza once or twice and woke up his neighbor’s dogs a few times when you biked by – and other times were simply ingenuity on your part; casually calling his mom and asking if she’d wake him up, he wasn’t answering his phone! Those times, you even felt the faint pang of fear from his end when his doorknob trembled.

Subconsciously or not, he ends up relegating it to shower times, so you’re out of luck there. But whatever. Next year is senior year, and in that span of time you have had a nice boyfriend or two and Mingyu has made out with god knows how many people in the hallway, and maybe – just maybe – you will make it out of this unscathed. You’ve been denying what you both are for so goddamn long it feels like the truth, and you’ve heard stories of soulmates who detached willfully for one reason or another, and yeah, okay, it’s frightening and you’re scared of what everyone will say when they figure it out. But you can fall in love normally. You can still be happy, somehow.

And you will do it without Kim Mingyu.

Summer is long and lovely, and you don’t see him for a single minute of it. When he takes a trip with friends across the country, you barely even get soulsick, and that’s your first scrap of hope you’ve had in so, so long.

So when the first day of senior year starts, you are completely unprepared.

–

“Who is that?”

“Is that Mingyu? What the fuck happened?”

“Oh holy shit. Wow. What? Really? Kim Mingyu?”

“Welp. Say goodbye to any hopes of pussy this year. He’s starting a harem.”

The whispers never made it to you until first period, when half the girls in your class were slack-jawed and murmuring over whoever was sitting by the window. But from the odd twinge in your gut, you knew… it.. he…

Tilting your head at the tall boy with a very classy haircut, he suddenly turned and made perfect eye contact with you. And the world tilted on its axis. Like something strange had opened up in your heart and turned it over, like a key in a music box winding up to its utmost tightness before releasing and ticking down so, so slowly, playing a melody that was desperate to reach its end. The intensity of his gaze was accentuated by his brow, but there was so, so much more to it than that – it was the way his jawbone had smoothed out like marble, and his shoulders were broader, and this wasn’t Mingyu, this couldn’t be _your Mingyu_ –

The bell rang, and you jumped, startled by the sound and flusteredly finding your desk and sitting down promptly. You did not look at the corner where the window was.

–

In the wise words of one of your favourite songs, “it gets worse”.

The rest of the day passes like a fever dream. Your stomach is in knots and your heart pounds incessantly, and you’re lucky it’s the first day because nothing important happens whatsoever and you’re too dazed to comprehend anything anyway. You smile and nod on autopilot, pretend to take notes, barely eat at lunch, and then drive home blasting music to try and break you from your numbness.

All you want is to go home, forget any of this happened, and have a good night’s sleep so tomorrow will be better.

You have dinner, mostly. You tell your parents school was fine. You take a shower, and scroll on your phone for a few hours, and then curl up under your covers and close your eyes.

Five minutes later, your insides coil tightly, and your eyes shoot open with a soft gasp.

It’s like fireworks between your thighs. Without moving a muscle, you become swollen and hot, and you’re practically drenching through your underwear within minutes. Every other night he’s done this pales in comparison.

Automatically, your gaze shoots to your phone, sitting innocently on your nightstand and plugged in to charge. You can pick it up and call his mom. This doesn’t have to happen.

Shutting your eyes tightly, you don’t think, you don’t think at all. It’s nearly pitch black in your room and far too warm, balmy, and your clothes stick to your too-sensitive skin, and you scarcely breathe when your hands slowly crawl up your t-shirt. You hold your breath when your hands cup around your breasts, and then squeeze.

You sigh into the darkness, steadily massaging them. The build up is slow and aching, and it feels like an eternity before you allow yourself to pinch your nipples and restrain a whine.

Somewhere, a few short blocks away, is your soulmate, doing almost the same thing. You are acutely aware of the equally slow throbbing from his end, and the blessing and curse is that it bleeds into your own pleasure. Part of you wants to be worried – worried that this is so good nothing will ever compare again – but then your fingers are crawling down your stomach and you’re distracted, because maybe Mingyu does the same thing. Maybe he starts slow and drags his hands down his body, too. Maybe he’s so hard it hurts, and maybe his breath catches when he thumbs over himself just how you’re pressing and rubbing across your own swollen clit.

You hope so. But you think it’s true, because for every breath you take, there’s another jolt of electricity straight through you.

You could be touching yourself for hours or minutes. You’ll never know. All you can think about is you nearly-pruned fingers, sopping with your arousal and your desperation that’s stuffing your insides and waiting to flood you, and it’s almost like you’re already full of him and his pleasure. Every touch, every spark in your nerves is doubled, and you instinctively follow an invisible rhythm that you cannot see or touch but it’s in every fibre of your being, coaxing you towards some blissful end–

And it’s like an explosion. Your lungs lock and you seize up and you don’t know if your eyes are open or shut but you’re not able to have a single coherent thought anyway. Everything is just the blinding, all-consuming shades of pleasure that resonate in you far too deeply to be real, coming in waves and waves that never end. And then, gradually, they vanish, and you’re suddenly back in your room, on your bed, covered in sweat and gasping for air like you’d been underwater for ten minutes.

You don’t look at the clock. You just fall asleep, and have the strangest, pleasant dreams of lovely hands playing with your hair.

–

The next day, you stolidly do not look at the corner where he sits, or even acknowledge that he exists. That’s a very difficult thing to do when it’s like there’s a second heartbeat colliding against your own, and trickles of laughter and frustration and tiredness that do not belong to you appear every so often when your guard is down.

The only real exception comes from the palpable, nauseating panic that comes from wondering and not knowing if _he knew_.

It’s a two way street, after all. If he’s yours, then you are his. But you didn’t get soulsick that last time he left – that single fact leaves you stable. Because that means your connection is weakened and withering. It means you were successful, in some degree, to cutting each other out.

The thought makes you sick, but it’s fine, it’s fine, everything is going to be fine, you’re sure of it, and there’s no need to worry. No need to worry at all.

Mingyu doesn’t look at you or bother you, either.

Despite these follies, it’s a few days later when you’re trying to do homework and the tight, roiling pleasure kicks in again, just as brutal as the last time. You scramble to put up any sort of mental defense and stave it off, but it’s entirely useless – you _want_ it, from your very heart you want _more_.

Shaking, you stumble to your door to lock it and then crawl into your bed, belly-first, fingers jammed between your legs as you whimper into your pillows. He’s faster this time, rushing and clumsy like he’s trying to just get it over with, and your poor knees are trembling within minutes and your cry is muffled by your bedding as an unbidden orgasm washes over you.

The next day is Friday, and he still doesn’t turn his head or even make eye contact. You still feel his emotions brush against yours, but you try harder to tamp it down, keep him as far away as possible.

…Until the next night. Because you simply cannot resist it. Some potent hunger had set up camp inside of you, and it was insatiable. There was no point in trying to stave it off, and as long as Mingyu didn’t know, you could quietly indulge in temptation, night after night, a secret slave to his desires. Of course you were ashamed, and wanted to claw your skin off sometimes, trade your body for someone else’s who could be soulmates like a normal fucking person, but… But you couldn’t. These were the cards you were dealt. Biology, fate, the cosmos, the big guy upstairs, whoever or whatever decided this, and there was not a goddamn thing you could do about it.

It’s been three months, and winter break is coming up. In charge of dinner, it’s been a regular, uneventful day, until you press the button on the toaster and suddenly your core tightens and your entire body responds to the boy several blocks away.

“Honey? You okay?” your mother called from the dining room. You didn’t realize you were keeled over on the counter, wide-eyed and white-knuckled like you’d just seen a ghost. Thinking fast, you coughed and put your hand over your pounding heart, calling back, “I-I’m good, just swallowed wrong.”

She didn’t suspect anything. Internally, your thoughts were going a mile a minute, begging silently to nobody for respite. It occurred to you _very_  quickly that you didn’t know what would happen if you didn’t play along like you always had, and with a dry mouth and horrified bite of your lip you realized that you might just cum standing up in the middle of your kitchen without doing a goddamn thing.

“Oh no,” you spoke under your breath. “Oh fuck. Oh, no no no…”

Swallowing thickly, you looked around the walls and room for any sort of idea, any escape, any plan – you had food on the stove, you couldn’t just beeline it for your room and rub one out ( _god_ , that was mortifying to think about). The longest minute of your life ticked by as the melting heat in your belly grew and grew, cursing Kim Mingyu all the while.

 _Please please please please_ , you prayed. _Please God. Please. God DAMN it Mingyu, walk in motherfucking TRAFFIC–!_

You yelped when the toaster suddenly popped up, and with wildly trembling hands you nearly burnt yourself retrieving it. By the time you got it on the plate you realized the arousal had rapidly subsided into… an irritating twinge. Your heart leapt. He’d stopped. Someone walked in on him, didn’t they? Or maybe he got a phone call.

Either way, you nearly cried from relief, and dinner came out just fine.

Just a few more days. A single, short week, and you will be home free for weeks on end, and Mingyu’s family will go on their annual trip to their extended family, and then you will be untouchable.

–

The next day, he looks at you. You don’t see it, you _feel_ it – the burning sensation of his eyes crawling up your body like it was his hands physically on you. It gave you chills – not all bad – and if was the reason you fucked up your Modern Lit midterm, you’d castrate him on Christmas morning. Happy holidays, fuckboy!

He watches you the next day, too. Unease stirs in you. But you don’t look. You can’t.

You only get truly worried when Thursday comes and goes, and your skin is itching and your heart is overheated and fluttering. Tension throbs in you like a ticking bomb. It takes far longer than it should for you to figure it out. It’s not until you’re about to take a shower and you see the state of your soaked panties that it dawns on you– and it is with mild horror that you recognize the foreign need for _release_  of the very _physical_  kind.

Oh no. Oh no, no, no.

It’s been five days since Mingyu jerked off last, you realize numbly. He’s never gone this long. After three months of being wrapped around his finger, your body is wholly tuned in to his, and now starving for its regular sessions of unspoken, clandestine intimacy.

A bead of sweat rolls down your neck. Your tank top is suffocating, and your fresh underwear is sticking to you uncomfortably as you kick your covers off. It must be twenty degrees outside, but you feel like a furnace.

 _Maybe I should just…_ You bite your lip, nursing it anxiously. Your heart jumps at the prospect of relief, but you’re terrified he’ll know.

Breathing in and out with careful control through your nose, you think about pine trees and fresh blankets of snow, bells and soft music, sweet hands toying with your hair and braiding it–

And nothing helps. For over an hour you lay there, badly trying to subdue this monster that’s taken up residence in your body, but time drags on and it does not lessen. Not a bit.

Trapped in a haze of sleepiness and lightheaded lust, you sigh and close your eyes tight. Pretending this isn’t happening. With your hands on your sensitive skin, pinching and kneading, you thrash and writhe on your messy sheets and cum in what might be less than thirty seconds, stifling your keening sob within your pursed mouth. Something about it is unsatisfying, but it’s enough – it’s enough. A weight is lifted from you, and you can finally _breathe_  and you fall asleep gloriously fast.

You dream of pine trees in a field of fresh snow, covered in bells that faintly chime in the wind. And someone stands behind you, humming a song you do not know but wish you did, and his hands are just the right temperature as they tuck your hair behind your ears.

–

F-r-i-d-a-y.

You slept through your alarm like a certified dumbass, but thankfully only missed homeroom. Your friends gave you shit for it, but since it was the last day before break, half the classes were empty anyway – tons of kids left early for trips and vacations, and each period was essentially spent fucking off and chatting and laughing and playing games.

Fifth period, your teacher isn’t even there. The substitute is more chill than any of you deserve, and it’s with a wry smile that she shrugs and says, “You can stay in here and watch Bill Nye, or you can go outside and freeze to death, or go to the library or whatever. As long as you’re back here before the bell rings. If you aren’t, I’m writing you up. Is everyone okay with that?”

The remnants of the class are practically in tears and ready to kiss her feet, and most of them scurrying out the door within seconds. A few stay, because Bill Nye is honestly not a bad way to spend an hour, but after the first episode you certainly wouldn’t mind flitting off to the computer lab and having the internet to yourself.

Waving goodbye, you leave your desk and slip out. Your footsteps echo down the eerily empty hallway, and for the first time in forever, you feel happy and light and–

And there is the sound of the classroom door shutting much later than it should have, and you don’t even have the time to scream when a familiar grip circles your arm and you’re yanked into a supply closet with one very predatory Kim Mingyu.

“So,” he says, the words curling off his tongue like poison and honey and _god_ , does it do things to you, “how long are you going to act like we haven’t been getting off together? Because I really can’t keep this up much longer.”

Silence.

You gape at him. Your mind is completely blank, and you can hear your heart beating literally in your throat and your blood pounding in your ears, and it is a million degrees in this little space, and not a single intelligible thought crosses your mind.

The only light comes from the crack under the door, and it’s just enough to illuminate Mingyu from the bottom up, leaving his face in taunting shadows and his eyes glinting faintly fluorescent.

And he still hasn’t let go of your arm.

You have no idea how you find your voice, but it sounds small and strange to your own ears when you croak out a very silly, “What?”

His gaze narrows and your heart does something funny at it. This can’t be happening. But you’re starting to come back to your senses, and the blood is draining from your face as your own eyes go big and petrified like the rest of you.

“You think I didn’t know?”

Amazing how such a simple question could make you feel so profoundly _stupid_. Practically vibrating from adrenaline and shock now, you’re in disbelief at the situation, and desperately ignoring the not-so-newfound voice in your head that begs you to just close the gap and _kiss him_.

“Wh… what?” you flat-line once more. Mingyu leans in too close. He’s kind of radiant, and smells like everything you love, and reminds you of a dream you can’t remember right now. “Know wh-what?”

“You’re stuttering,” he points out coolly, all pleasant and tall and eating up your personal space as if he owns it. “I can spell it out. Do you want me to? Every single night that I was hard and my hand was wr–”

“STOP! Stop! Mingyu, I–”

“Did you really think I wouldn’t figure it out?”

You might faint. 

The entire world as you knew it was crashing down around you, and you were so choked up and nauseous you wanted to cry and run as far away as you possible could, and then run some more, and then maybe jump off a cliff. 

But his brow is furrowing, and he looks frustrated. You can even feel it coming off him in little sparks and scratching at your own nerves.

“Stop freaking out,” he mutters, and you can’t read the emotions swirling around in his eyes. All of your own are too muddled to try and sort out his in the mess. “It’s not like I’m mad. Just… I just can’t take it anymore. This. Whatever this is. You killed me the moment you showed up on that playground and just when I thought I was crawling out of my grave, you walk into class that first day and I… I… you…”

In a rare display, Mingyu isn’t yelling at you. He isn’t being sarcastic. There is no venom, no vitriol, no barely-concealed disdain. In fact, it’s quite the opposite – Mingyu is struggling to find a single adequate word to make you understand  _anything_ , even a drop of what he feels.

“You looked killer,” he mumbles, and something sickly-sweet restarts your heart and shoots straight to your toes, curling them and making you blush.

Except he’s not done.

“How do I tell you that I… I-I want to make this work. With you. I-I want _you_.”

_I want y o u._

The three words fill up the tiny closet like an ocean. They fill up your whole body, too, heart and soul, and the school, and the known universe. You don’t tread water – you drown under the weight of Kim Mingyu’s love and the burden of it sweeping against your own, coaxing, tempting, yearning to make you open up all your insides and expose yourself to him irrevocably.

“Oh god,” you choke out. “F-fuck. No. No, no, no. No, you’re, you’re not seriously… You’re… This is a prank.”

The flare of his anger is real and sears you like flames licking the hollow of your chest. Roughly, he grabs your wrist and shoves your hand against his shirt, right under his collarbone, where you are met with a surge of powerful, raw emotion and the painfully hard beating of his heart. It’s too close, it’s too intimate, he’s not fucking lying, you can’t do this, this is _not_ what was supposed to happen, he can’t, you can’t, no, no, no, _no_.

Embarrassment eats you alive. You’re mortified. Everything you had ever known was gone, and you were free-falling.

“N-no,” you stammer brokenly, shaking. “No. No.”

His lips part immediately and he inhales sharply to protest. Heartbreak and shame and wretched agony wells up in him and tastes like copper in your mouth. And then it all simmers to a cold, controlled buzz, just under the surface. You could reach out and touch it if you wanted.

You don’t. You don’t, you don’t, you don’t.

“Alright,” Mingyu says, and you think his voice cracked. “Cool.”

You don’t know why you’re shaking.

“Well. Sorry.”

You don’t know why you want to cry.

“I guess I’ll just go walk in traffic.”

You don’t know what he’s doing, but he’s let go of your hand, which falls limply beside you. He’s turned his back to you, and with some difficulty he turns the knob, lurid lights flooding your vision and making him glow too brightly.

“M-Mingyu?”

He’s walking. Away. Your knees are ready to give out, so you clutch at the wall, stumbling after him. You don’t know what you’re doing.

“Mingyu,” you try again, voice too high and strangled.

A flash of him walking onto the road in front of a truck crosses your mind. 

That single image is what prompts your yell.

“ _MINGYU!_ ”

The name echoes in the entire vicinity, bouncing off of lockers and doors and tiles and walls. But nobody comes out.

The boy down the hall finally stops, reluctant to turn around. Like a faucet turned off, you can’t feel a thing from his end, and it terrifies you, leaves you empty and alone, and holy fuck he’s really been this close to you all these years, hasn’t he? His essence had always been melded with yours. Always. For so long, you couldn’t identify it until it was forcibly ripped away from you, and it felt like death.

“Mingyu,” your voice cracks this time, wavers. And you take a deep breath, and ask him a question.

“Did… did you mind me masturbating with you?”

It’s probably not the last thing he expected you to say, but it is certainly high up there on his short list.

Mingyu’s head whips around, and he stares dumbstruck for a moment before some semblance of pleasure faintly reaches the corners of his mouth.

“Well,” he says lightly. “Minding-wise, I’d probably say I was the luckiest man on Earth. You kind of make everything better.”

Pleasure electrifies you to your fingertips at the sentiment, and Mingyu absolutely feels it from the way his eyes go heavy-lidded and he bites his lip softly. God, how it does things to you. But you swallow, and go on, needing to know:

“What… about Monday night? When I was–?”

“Making dinner? That was one of the only times I’ve ever actually heard you in my head. You have to be thinking of something harder than steel for it to make it to me.”

Tentative and blushing, dreading what he might have heard and trying to accept the fact that Mingyu had been so in tune with you for so long, you brave, “Wh-what was it?”

He clears his throat.

“’Mingyu, walk in motherfucking traffic’.”

The delivery is deadpan, but his eyes are glittering with faint amusement, and after a few agonizing seconds your hands are clamped over your mouth, repressing hysterical giggles. Your knees and sanity can take no more; you crumple to the tiles, tears in the corners of your eyes, and you will never forget the overwhelming, divine relief of Mingyu suddenly hovering in front of you, sighing and rolling his eyes as he scoops your hair out of your face and behind your ears.

 _Mingyu has such a pretty smile_ , you notice.

“You feel so nice,” he murmurs through your blubbering giggles and tears and smiles, smiling himself like a fool who’s just discovered the sun. “I mean, your cheeks and hair and stuff, but… but your insides or whatever. You feel so right.” He laughs, “Jesus, this is why I was jerking it like four times a week–”

“M- _Min_ gyu–!”

“–Oh hush, you know you liked it. Actually  _I_  know you liked it.”

What awful timing. He’s staring at you tenderly and with open desire, all clouded with lust and want and need as he gently wipes the damp trails off your cheeks and fixes your bangs. 

And then the bell rings.

You grimace. Fuck, you need to get up and not get in trouble, but you can’t move – because his palms are squishing your face and he’s giving you a serious look that turns you to butter and makes you still for him.

“____,” he says softly, and the sound of your name is like all you’ve ever wanted. “No more hiding, okay?”

Funny that he’d say that. It feels like just yesterday he was tucked under his bed.

“Alright,” you smile crookedly. Doors are starting to open, and you are _absolutely_ going to get written up in the next five minutes for what you’re about to do next, but you can’t bring yourself to care. It’s Friday, after all. “You first.”

And you close the gap, pressing your lips to his until you see stars and he’s grinning against your mouth when the catcalls start up and a teacher is coming. 

Impressively, you both end up in the principal’s office.

It’s every parent’s worst nightmare. But as a warm hand secretly sneaks a tug at your hair when nobody’s looking, you think there’s an off-chance it might be your stupid dream come true.


End file.
